If racing drivers had enjoyed the sort of protection in the 1980s that they enjoy today, Clay Regazzoni would not have spent the last 26 years of his life in a wheelchair. The fact that they did not was one of the reasons Regazzoni was held in such affection and why his death in a road accident at the weekend has been so widely mourned.

I remember Regazzoni at Brands Hatch in the early 1970s, taking the lead by hurling his Ferrari past Jackie Stewart's Tyrrell on the main straight. From Clearways to Paddock Bend the occupants of the grandstands rose as one to salute the moment. You could hear the cheers above the combined scream of the two engines.

Why was the crowd applauding a Swiss driver for getting the better of one of their own, and a world champion to boot? Maybe Regazzoni evoked such enthusiasm because he was at the wheel of a Ferrari and this was a time before every hedge-fund manager in London, Frankfurt, New York and Hong Kong had one in the garage and another on order, paid for in advance with cash from the Christmas bonus.

Thirty-five years ago there was a real magic to the red cars. But it was also something to do with the man in the cockpit, because Regazzoni was the kind of driver who made people into grand prix fans.

There was a wildness to him, at least in his early years, that appealed to those who liked to see a driver showing emotion at the wheel. He had a kind of piratical ruthlessness that already seemed to belong to another era. It certainly did not belong to the era of Stewart who, motivated by the deaths of such friends as Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Piers Courage, was already well into his long campaign to improve the safety aspect of formula one through the use of safety belts, flameproof clothing and improved emergency medical facilities.

Many fans of the sport were ambivalent about Stewart's campaign, particularly when it became obvious that one of its consequences would be a neutering or even the abandonment of historic and picturesque circuits which were now deemed too dangerous for the new generation of drivers. Many of those who cheered Regazzoni as he overtook Stewart were, in effect, demonstrating on behalf of a vanishing era in which drivers accepted a level of mortal risk associated with Battle of Britain fighter pilots.

Stewart lost that particular race but he won the day in terms of circuit safety. The old 14-mile Nürburgring, with its 174 corners, would soon be gone. Spa-Francorchamps would be shortened. Rheims and Rouen would be abandoned. Chicanes would interrupt the flat-out straights at Monza and Le Mans. And gradually, particularly after Ayrton Senna's death in 1994, the cars themselves would become so safe that their drivers would be able to emerge intact from the kind of accidents that had formerly inflicted severe damage, such as the one at Long Beach in 1980 in which Regazzoni's spinal cord was severed.

Stewart was right, of course, and those of us who resented his safety-first attitude were wrong. The passing of Regazzoni is a reminder of a kind of naked bravery that managed to burn itself into the memory of those who saw it before becoming as obsolete as the carburettor, the wire-spoked wheel and the string-backed glove.

Warning: pick up a rifle, pickaxe or sledgehammer at your own risk

Apologies to the reader who shot himself in the foot last week while unwisely using a real rifle rather than an imaginary one to try the experiment I described in order to prove that batting left-handed is really batting right-handed, and vice-versa. But, as if to reinforce the point, along came Alastair Cook to score his first century against Australia, batting left-handed. Had he been invited to bowl, he would have produced conventional right-arm off-spin.

Several people pointed out that the choice of orientation may have less to do with limbs than with a dominant eye, which seems to reinforce rather than invalidate the "rifle" argument. The right eye, which lines up the sights and the target, becomes the leading eye when the hands holding the imaginary rifle are swung down to become an imaginary cricket bat.

Another reader points out, more or less apropos of the debate, that you never see the piano played left-handed - prompting me to wonder how much money it would take to persuade Steinway to build one, and to wonder whether Jimi Hendrix played golf left-handed, as he played his Fender Stratocaster, below.

That same reader supports my original theory and adds an embellishment. "See how many right-handers pick up a spade, pickaxe or sledgehammer with their right hand at the top of the handle and their left hand somewhere along the shaft," he writes.

If you are going to try this stuff at home, it should be pointed out here and now that this column accepts no responsibility for personal injury.

Romario scores No987 and then waves goodbye

Romario watch, week four: finally the old fellow justified at least some of the £80,000 that Adelaide United are reported to have paid him for four appearances in the A-League. Fifteen minutes into last weekend's home game against Newcastle Jets, Ante Covic in the visitors' goal could only parry Jason Spagnuolo's low cross from the left and Romario was on hand to bundle the loose ball over the line. It was not pretty but a tribute to his continued ability to be in the right place at least some of the time - and it took the 40-year-old to within 13 goals of his target of 1,000.

The 987th goal of his career opened the scoring for Adelaide, who went on to win 3-2 in front of a crowd of 12,214 in the Hindmarsh Stadium. Romario also provided the pass for the winning goal and five minutes from time he hit an instant drive which produced a reflex save from Covic and could have come from his personal highlights video. A minute later he was substituted, this time to allow him to enjoy a farewell ovation.

"He put the effort into the team tonight," Adelaide's coach, John Kosmina, said afterwards with just a hint of ambivalence. "We won and he scored. I think there's a lot of people happy about that." The club will not be attempting to extend the 40-year-old's contract but few Australian soccer fans will forget the month that a World Cup winner spent among them.

Million-dollar booby

So Tiger Woods won his eighth tournament of the season at the weekend, collecting $1.35m (£691,220) for finishing first in the Target World Challenge, a tournament he hosts. How's that again? He hosts a tournament, and then goes and wins it, and walks away from his own party with more than a million dollars in his pocket, pricking the balloons on the way out and leaving his guests to squabble over the cake crumbs? And I always thought the game of golf prided itself on impeccable manners.